


with difficulty and grief

by mollivanders



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-10
Updated: 2017-04-10
Packaged: 2018-10-17 09:04:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10590789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mollivanders/pseuds/mollivanders
Summary: “I’m fine,” he murmurs as she curls up next to him in the ship’s bunk. They are well on their way home and he’s patched up as best he can be, but the sight of him going down under three blaster shots burns brightly in her memory. She’d been shot once, getting to him, and they are both littered with bruises and small injuries.(But they are both alive.)“I know,” she says, curling her arm around his chest, and it’s mostly true.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [earnmysong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/earnmysong/gifts).



> _“You will live as you live in any world,” Madame Lebedeva said. She reached out her hand as if to grasp Marya’s, as if to press it to her cheek, then closed her fingers, as if Marya’s hand were in hers. “With difficulty, and grief.” - Deathless_

She knows every blaster mark, every knife wound, every bruise on his body. She knows every time he’s been shot, every time Bodhi has been hit, every time Chirrut and Baze have gone missing. She catalogs them in the back of her mind, a tally of life against death, and holds her breath until they are all safely home.

(She remembers every long hour, waiting on them to pull through.)

She knows this every time they go into battle or on a mission, and it doesn’t stop her. She has their back and she knows they have hers, but she carries it with her all the same. She grasps at their positions, guessing at whether they are alive, whether they are coming home, and burns her way across a field to make sure they do.

(She knows she won’t always win.)

“I’m fine,” he murmurs as she curls up next to him in the ship’s bunk. They are well on their way home and he’s patched up as best he can be, but the sight of him going down under three blaster shots burns brightly in her memory. She’d been shot once, getting to him, and they are both littered with bruises and small injuries.

(But they are both alive.)

“I know,” she says, curling her arm around his chest, and it’s mostly true. She shifts, letting him slide an arm around her as she traces the edges of an old scar. Above deck, she can hear the echo of Bodhi and K2’s voices as they argue over the navicomputer, their mild bickering a reassuring presence after the mission.

(He’d gone down _hard_. Her heart had frozen within her and she’d had to cut through half a platoon to get to him and bring him back. She doesn’t remember most of it, but she does remember comming K2 to airlift them away from the city. Draven would not be happy about the failed mission, but he’d be less happy with losing his best spy.

And Cassian was worth far more than a single mission.)

“Where is this one from?” she asks, prompting him to open his eyes. The scar runs down the right side of his breast and under his arm. He shuts his eyes again, leaning back into the pillow. “Bounty hunter on Ord Mantell,” he says. “Wrong place, wrong time.”

It’s a dull reminder that their work puts them in harm’s way without trying. She runs her thumb along the edge of the scar, past the bacta patches holding him together. “Bad story?” she asks lightly and his mouth twists. “No,” he mutters, looking at her again. “Just an idiot teenager who didn’t know what he was doing.”

Her mouth quirks with amusement and she sits up on her elbow to look down at him. “Idiot teenager?” she asks curiously, “What happened to him?”

Cassian rolls his eyes and she grins. Her fingers brush across one of the bacta patches and she pulls away as his breath hitches. “Sorry,” she mutters before he grabs at her hand, drawing her back. She settles half-across him, their hands linked together, and he looks up at the ship’s ceiling. “He went out too early,” he says, and as her hand tightens around his he shakes his head. “Against orders. Snuck onto a Pathfinders ship and ended up in a fight way over his head.” He turns, looking at her. “Last time I disobeyed orders though,” he says before adding wryly, “before you.”

She frowns thoughtfully. “How old were you?”

He shrugs. “Fourteen or so. But after that, they figured I could handle myself, so I went out more often. More solo missions. Less recon than before.”

Suddenly she is unable to look at him, his missing childhood unlocking memories of her own, and drops back down next to him. His hand rubs comfortingly at her back, a calm solace, and she shakes her head. “I don’t even remember fourteen,” she mumbles before adding, “Saw wasn’t big on anniversaries.”

There is a long pause before Cassian shifts against her, his lips brushing at her crown. He smells of battle sweat, Maskin dirt, and the bacta soap she’d cleaned him with. “What was he like?” he asks quietly and she manages to look at him again, deciphering the note of wonder in his voice.

“He was family,” she says, simple and protective. She tightens her arm around him, their hands still linked. “The only family I had.”

“We heard about him in the ranks,” Cassian says. “Even when we were kids. The first rebel. He was a hero to us. A legend, really.”

(A blaster pressed into her hands when she was ten. Campfire stories about stormtroopers blown to pieces. Lessons on how to defuse a grenade and how to kill a man without attracting attention. A bunker, much like the one he had rescued her from. Jedha, once more.)

“He was like my father,” she says, tilting her head up to meet Cassian’s gaze, a jumble of emotions fighting to the surface, warring to be a man’s legacy. _Hero. Savior. Rebel. Father. Gone._ She sighs, pulling closer to Cassian and wincing at her own injuries. “He was all of those things.”

Cassian’s breath is steady and reassuring against her as he nods. “But?” he asks, prompting her to continue and she frowns, absently tracing his scars. He is warm beneath her, his heart beating out a tattoo of _alive, alive, alive._ Here, and alive.

“But you’re my family now,” she says. “You all are.”

He finds her hand again and she smiles, the one only he can see. “You _are_ allowed to sleep,” she says. “You don’t have a concussion. Just…” Her voice trails off, looking at the bruises and bacta patches littered across his body.

“I thought I was gone,” he mutters, fatigue rising in his voice. “I’ve been shot before but –”

“You’re lucky,” she says with force and he snorts. “Lucky that you came for me.”

“That,” she says, “and that the ‘troopers were aiming everywhere and not just at you.”

“They probably thought I was dead,” he says, his breathing slowing and she can tell he’s almost asleep. “ _I_ thought I was dead.”

“Well,” she says, looking up at him, “You’ve got me. You’ve got Bodhi and K2. We wouldn’t let you.” He makes a soft noise of assent, pulling her closer as she draws the blanket over them both. “I know,” he says, barely audible, “I know.”

(He sleeps the rest of the way to the base.

She keeps the watch.)

_Finis_

**Author's Note:**

> A very belated Galentine's Day gift fic for earnmysong who requested hurt/comfort fic. This also fills Day One of therebelcaptainnetwork's [RebelCaptain Appreciation Week - Writing Prompt - Family](https://therebelcaptainnetwork.tumblr.com/post/158905745835/as-rogue-one-has-finally-been-released-and). 
> 
> I am [ladytharen](http://ladytharen.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr if you want to say hi :)


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